


Let it snow! Let it snow! (but please let it stop eventually)

by relenafanel



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Dancing, Derek and Stiles grew up as neighbors, Idiots in Love, Laura Hale & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, M/M, Snowed In, and the two families are spending the holidays together, holiday fic, now their parents are getting married, sex in front of a fireplace, terrible flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 03:16:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relenafanel/pseuds/relenafanel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles grew up with his bedroom window overlooking Derek's bedroom, so when he returns home for the holidays he's surprised to find a stranger in his nerdy neighbour's bedroom.</p><p>Only, he's not much of a stranger.</p><p>It <i>is</i> Derek Hale, the guy who is going to be his new step brother, if the rumours are true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let it snow! Let it snow! (but please let it stop eventually)

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my holiday fic 2013. Ignore the fact it was technically posted the first day of 2014.
> 
> I mixed a number of tropes together for this one:
> 
> The going home at xmas and finding out the guy next door became hot since the last time you saw him trope
> 
> The going home at xmas and finding out your dad is getting married and now you're stuck with your new step sibs ruining your holiday traditions with their faces (you fall in love with one of them) trope
> 
> The getting snowed in while staying at a remote cabin trope
> 
> Check my profile for the rest of my work, including two stories I wrote for the 2012 holiday season: [Don We Now Our Gay Fake Boyfriends](http://archiveofourown.org/works/622385) and [12 Days of Hale Publishing](http://archiveofourown.org/works/588359)

 

Stiles was getting out of his car at the same time a really sweet Camaro pulled up at the house next door.  He didn’t particularly have a lot of knowledge about cars, but he did recognise this one as being nice.  Really nice.  Almost too nice for the neighbourhood of solidly middle class houses that were slowly starting to fall apart as the middle class income made it a little bit too difficult to maintain a good custom fence.  The man who emerged from the car looked like a Hale, though.  The same dark hair and well sculpted scuff that all Hale men seemed to exhibit from the age of sixteen to ninety, as far as Stiles had been able to tell.

 

Except for maybe Derek Hale, but then Derek had always been the runt of the family.

 

(Adorable for it, but Stiles didn’t want to think of that).

 

The guy looked over at Stiles and froze, and for some inane reason Stiles lifted his arm in greeting, though he was sure that he hadn’t met this particular ancillary Hale, despite the familiarity of his features.  The man squinted at him, almost pained, as he lifted his arm back and almost flung it in Stiles’ direction as he stalked into the house.

 

Weird.  He hadn’t done anything to mortally offend the Hales recently, especially not one who wasn’t even one of the core Hales he remembered.  There had been the time he’d helped Derek crazy glue Laura’s hand to her phone, but it was far more likely Laura would be the one who had lingering animosity for that.

 

And Laura fucking _loved_ Stiles.

 

Of course, the Hales were kind of super grumpy all the time on the outside, but generally really nice once they liked… ok, they were always assholes, but some of the best assholes Stiles had ever met, and he’d met some huge assholes.

 

He took a moment to look at his house, and it looked exactly the same as it had two years before, the last time Stiles had managed to visit home.  Oddly the same, even.  He’d visited in August. Where were the Christmas decorations, dad?

 

Stiles’ father loved those stupid inflatable lawn displays and icicle lights.  John lived for outdoing the neighbours, and last year the Stilinski and the Hales had done some kind of joint decoration project.  Stiles had seen pictures.  It was cool in theory but poor in execution since his dad had zero real imagination and the Hales were not known for being patient, and putting up lights took both skill and time.

 

So it was weird that there was nary a wayward ornament on their front lawn.  Stiles wondered if he was in some kind of alternate reality or something, where his dad didn’t care about Christmas and the Hales had nice cars.  “Dad,” he yelled, pushing open the door.  There wasn’t anyone in the living room or kitchen, so he ran upstairs, only to find that empty as well.  He’d driven by the Sheriff’s station on his way in and hadn’t seen his father’s car parked there.  It was parked outside, Stiles had pulled up alongside it.  Heh.  “ ** _Dad?_** ” he yelled one last time, just to make sure the house was actually empty and his dad wasn’t in the attic digging for the twinkle lights or something. 

 

Well, maybe his dad was walking to work now, or carpooling.

 

“Surprise,” he grumbled to the empty house, walking into his old bedroom and dumping his suitcase on the floor.  Stiles fell onto his bed in a splay of limbs, starfishing across his old comforter.  It didn’t kick up any dust around him, so it looked like his dad had at least washed it in the last few years.  His head automatically turned so he could take in his bedroom, his old telescope, and the collection of books and participation trophies in his bookcase, all pathetically present and accounted for.

 

The window curtain was open next to his head, and he could see the miscellaneous Hale wander into the room across the narrow space separating their houses – Derek’s old room – and close the door behind him.  It made Stiles irrationally angry to think that Talia was putting someone who wasn’t Derek up in Derek’s old room.  Derek himself couldn’t be very happy about that, he’d always been a little particular about people touching his stuff.  Cora had once opened a can of diet coke in Derek’s room and it had sprayed everywhere, all over his computer and comic books and dorky glasses.

 

Derek had then taken off his glasses and Stiles had noticed he had really pretty eyes, but that had been before he’d really understood how into guys he was, and Derek had never really given any sign of being into anyone beside his EverQuest avatar and Nikon camera.

 

The interloper opened the dresser drawer in Derek’s bedroom, and Stiles had a split second to be insulted that he was in Derek’s things, before the guy stripped off his shirt to show off a muscular back and an inspired shoulder to waist ratio.

 

And was that a tattoo? Oh wow, someone to rival Laura in the adventurous genes.  Derek Hale had trouble committing to the permanency of a new backpack.  Evidence was piling up, here.  Was Talia running some kind of home for wayward Hales?

 

Delicious ones with a body that could pull off a superhero suit, almost ANY superhero suit, and those back dimples above his ass that made Stiles want to press his thumbs into them.

 

Yum.  He could get behind catching glimpses of that through his window all the time.  It wasn’t like he could help it, it was just the position of the houses.  If he wanted to get any natural light in his room, he had to keep the curtain open.  Once upon a time he and Derek had an agreement that it wasn’t a big deal if occasionally they invaded each other’s privacy.

 

Stiles wondered if he’d have to have an awkward conversation with this new Hale about the window situation.

 

Then the guy violently tossed his shirt across the room towards the closet in a movement that was so painfully familiar Stiles shot up into a sitting position and stared, eyes open widely in shock.

 

What.

 

The.

 

Actual.

 

**_Fuck._ **

 

Derek?

 

 _Derek_ Hale?

 

It couldn’t be.  It wasn’t possible, was it?  Stiles more or less still looked the same as he had in high school.   No one who knew him would pass him by on the street without recognizing him, even though he had grown out his hair.  But this guy.  This possible Derek character.  He looked as far away from being Derek Hale as possible while still sharing a lot of the same familiar features.

 

Then the guy pulled on a fresh shirt, jerking it down the last foot of his torso in an impatient and quick motion, like changing took up far too much of his time, and Stiles knew.

 

He knew that he shouldn’t be able to identify Derek from his weird changing habits, because the only person strange in that scenario was Stiles for recognizing them, but… well…

 

Stiles knew, with 100% certainty, that the guy in Derek Hale’s room was Derek Hale.

 

Maybe he should have come home sooner rather than forcing his dad to come to him, if this was what he was missing.  What else had changed?  Would Laura have finally decided to settle down?  Would Talia suddenly seem maternal, all soft edges and cookies baking in the oven?  Maybe Cora now refused to wear anything but Louboutin (knockoffs) (or maybe the real thing, what with the probable cost of Derek’s car).

 

(What the hell did Derek do for a living that didn’t have him struggling like 98% of his classmates to fit into the adult way of life in this economy?)

 

Stiles felt like his whole world was turning on its head.

 

He thought about the fact that his dad’s car was out front, and how strange it was that he wasn’t home.  Then he considered that his dad’s habits wouldn’t be the same anymore, not now that he was dating Talia.  Of course his dad would park out front and then go next door.  He wouldn’t be alone, not with Talia or any of her children coming and going.  Not like their three bedroom house that John had been living alone in for years.

 

He knew where his father was, the realization crashing on him like an epiphany.

 

And he felt kind of dumb because if he’d been paying more attention, he would have known right away that his father usually ate dinner at the Hale house.  He’d been mentioning Talia more and more in conversation, in that light tone that told Stiles that he wasn’t deliberately bringing it up to test Stiles’ reaction.  It was just an ingrained part of his life now.

 

So Stiles shoved his feet back into his shoes and stomped across the front lawn.  It didn’t feel weird to ring the doorbell to the Hale house, but it was extremely offputting when his dad opened the door.

 

“I was wondering how long it would take you to figure it out,” John said, somewhat amused by Stiles.  “I was about to drag you over here.”

 

And yeah, Stiles had missed a lot if his dad was opening the door to the Hale house, and felt perfectly comfortable ushering Stiles in like it was his home.

 

“Stiles,” Talia said in greeting when Stiles shuffled into the kitchen.  Her tone was welcoming, but it lacked the true warmth he associated with the mother figures in his life.  Stiles didn’t blame her, because he felt acutely awkward standing in her kitchen too.  Maybe at some point in his life he’d see it as a sign she wasn’t good enough for his dad, or wasn’t trying hard enough (but not too hard, because there was nothing more offputting than fake cheer) but Stiles was an adult now.  He understood that adults weren’t perfect people, and he understood even more that his dad didn’t need for him to get along with the person he chose to spend his time with – especially since Stiles was never home to begin with.

 

And Talia?  Well, Stiles actually liked Talia.  She had a no nonsense attitude that he’d always found refreshing. 

 

“Derek mentioned you were home,” Talia continued, grabbing a bowl out of the fridge.  “Are you going to finish this pasta salad?” she asked John.  “It won’t last the week in the fridge.”

 

“Side dish?”

 

She shrugged.  “You’re the only one who likes it.  If it’s still here when we get back, I’m not cleaning it out.”

 

 

 

 

“Wait.  You’re going where?” Stiles asked, feeling a sinking sensation.  Of course the one time he actually manages to surprise his dad, his dad had plans to go away for the holidays.

 

“Talia, her kids, and I have reservations to a resort on Lake Tahoe this year as a family.  Our first Hale-Stilinski Christmas together.”

 

Oh sweet baby Jesus in a jello mold, he hadn’t realized it was so serious between them.  Soon they’d be knocking down a wall and building one huge room to join the living rooms between their houses.

 

Or worse, his dad would sell their house and move in with Talia, and every time Stiles visited he’d have to sleep on the couch and watch another family eat dinner in his old living room.

 

Stiles was doing his best not to frown, keeping the bitter, angry expression off his face, no matter how it felt like he was being pushed out of his life and his dad was both being stolen and moving on from him to a new family.  It seemed that no matter how old he was, no matter how rational, it was difficult to keep from reacting when he heard that. He reminded himself that it didn’t matter what his brain’s first reaction was, all that mattered was what he did with it.

 

“I asked you if you were coming home, son,” John continued.  “You said no.”

 

Stiles hadn’t known the invitation had been to a resort.  It bothered him that he wasn’t sure if his answer would have been the same if he had known.  At least, he would have understood the permanence of the answer.  “I hadn’t realized the invite was time sensitive,” he said instead, holding his palms out in an appeal. 

 

“He can stay with Derek in his cabin,” Talia answered decisively, tightly closing the garbage bag.  “It’s good to see you again, Stiles.”

 

Stiles hadn’t been particularly close to the Hales growing up.  When his dad was working overtime, he was usually hanging out with Scott, but there had been a few times when the Hales had made sure that he had somewhere to go.  Once, when he’d locked himself out of the house in the middle of a rainstorm they’d taken him in and given him dry clothing to wear.  Of course, he could only fit into Laura’s because Derek had been so much scrawnier than he was.

 

What he was trying to say was that Talia hadn’t been a mother figure to him, or at least not consistently, so it was strange to see that his father had a life with her now that Stiles wasn’t entirely caught up on.

 

At least he’d verified that the hot guy was Derek.  That was a mind bender, but it saved him from saying something like “oh, when is Derek going to show up? I haven’t seen him forever” to Talia when he could clearly see Derek outside the kitchen window doing something in the Hale backyard. 

 

“Stiles can stay with you, can’t he?” Talia said as Derek stomped into the kitchen to take the garbage bag from his mother.  To be fair to Derek, he had just come in from the back door and his shoes were coated in a layer of snow, so it would have been less polite for him not to stomp.

 

Derek froze, looked at Stiles with this expression that Stiles couldn’t really place.  Derek had never been very good at showing what he was thinking.  Or, put another way, Derek had always been very good at hiding what he was thinking.

 

“Sure,” Derek finally spoke.

 

He had just gotten the word out of his mouth when his sisters slammed open the back door.

 

“Stiles!” Laura shrieked when she saw him, dropping the plate of cookies in her hand on the counter and taking a running leap at him, trailing snow behind her.  Stiles caught her with a laugh, spinning her around to dispel some of the momentum.  He’d gone to the same college she had two years behind her, and for about half a year she took him under her wing (and showed him how to drink without throwing up, how to properly dance in a club without it getting too risqué, how to properly dance in a club when you wanted it to get too risqué, and how to properly eat out a woman using a can of silly putty as a prop.  He’d never actually gotten a chance to use the last one, because shortly after he’d gotten his first boyfriend and she’d decided she should probably get 100% serious about school rather than 70% serious).  There were some people in Stiles’ life that it wouldn’t matter how long it had been since they’d spoken, he’d always be able to pick right up where they ended. 

 

Laura was one of those people.  He supposed when you had a shared history comprised of getting kicked out of IHOP because you were still half drunk at 5 in the morning and your companion was singing songs from Mulan without a sound filter, it was a bit difficult to be awkward around each other.

 

“You need to come to the mountains with us!” Laura squealed at him, making everyone around her wince.  “I thought you were staying in San Diego! You texted me last week to say you couldn’t get away from a case!  You sly Christmas miracle.  There’s room for Stiles, right?”

 

“Derek just offered.”

 

Laura looked confused for a split second, like the idea of Derek offering anything really surprised her.  Then she grinned at her brother.  “If Derek doesn’t want you, I’ll take you,” Laura teased, draping herself off him.  “You can sleep with me.”

 

At that, at least one set of eyebrows winged up, and those were his dad’s.  A few years before, they had the awkward conversation where Stiles admitted that he still didn’t know what was going on with his sexuality to the point of betting on it, but he was kind of about guys for the moment.  So yes, his dad was surprised to hear that his probably-most-certainly-still-haven’t-decided-but-for-now-I’m-gay son was being invited to spend the night in a beautiful woman’s bed.

 

The entire Hale family looked kind of bored at Laura’s dramatics, like it was just another Tuesday. 

 

“Well, you kids have fun tonight,” Talia said, moving to grab her coat and allow John to help her into it.  “We’ll only be gone for a few hours, and while I’m sure it’s a tempting challenge, that isn’t enough time to throw a party.”

 

“Please,” Laura scoffed.  “Anyone worth partying with left BH years ago.  Rounding up the people back for the holidays would be futile, because here’s a secret.  Everyone who left and got the hell out of this shitty town are different people from the ones we knew.  The only ones worth partying are in this room, especially now that Stiles is here.”

 

Talia rolled her eyes.  “Don’t destroy anything, dear.”

 

“Have fun!” Laura insisted, ushering both the adults in the room out of the door.  Stiles wasn’t sure about Derek or Cora, but he knew for a fact that all of them were of the age where they should also be considered adults, but back home, leaning against various surfaces of the Hale kitchen, Stiles could say that it didn’t feel like it.

 

“We need to go dancing,” Laura said gravely.

 

Cora picked at her fingernails.  “The last time dancing was fun was in 2011 when I was still a minor.”

 

~

 

Stiles didn’t know how Laura had gotten her way.  Stiles was never sure how Laura got her way, because she had the worst best ideas ever. 

 

But somehow she had, and that was how Stiles was spending his first evening back in Beacon Hills in years inside of a sad and sketchy club that had seen better days even before Stiles had snuck into it using his fake ID when he was younger.

 

It was strange remember that when he’d had a case last year about underage kids getting into a club using fake IDs and then disappearing.  The last time he’d gone dancing had probably been on that case too, and it had been for work. 

 

Wow, he had zero social life.

 

Derek looked so uncomfortable, sitting at their table with a drink between his hands.  Stiles knew that Derek was just drinking a diet coke, and that it was half flat.  He knew from experience that nonalcoholic drinks at the bar tended to have lost the fizz long before they were served.  Stiles figured he was probably right if the way Derek was frowning at it was any indication.  Cora was sitting across from him, looking equally as bored, but in a way that told everyone in a ten foot radius that she was unimpressed and daring someone to do something about it.  Derek just looked uncomfortable.

 

There was a distinction.  Stiles wasn’t sure how he could tell, but there was one.

 

“He’s single,” Laura said, one arm looped around his neck.  They were dancing together, closely so they could talk, but nothing Stiles considered blatantly sexy.  Laura had terrible rhythm and Stiles always ended up starting her out with hands guiding her hips until she picked up what the music was doing.  “And hot as fuck if you go for that type.”

 

“What type?” Stiles questioned, knowing he was going to regret it.  Laura was ridiculous.   “Broody and attractive?”

 

“No, the sexy brother type,” she grinned, jabbing her fingers into his side.  “We’re going to be related now.  Your dad’s bought the ring.”

 

That was news to Stiles.  Was he so out of touch with his life that he didn’t even know his dad was going to propose to Talia?

 

“You didn’t know?” Laura asked, always intuitive.

 

“I need air,” Stiles said, drawing away from her.  By the time he returned to the table, Cora was flirting with some guy, staring at him like he was the stupidest person on earth: the mating call of hipsters.  He seemed responsive, if going by the way he was negatively shaking his head at her drink.

 

“Did you know?” Stiles asked, swiping his hands through his hair.  He knew how it looked, how ‘mad scientist’ his hair could go when it was sweaty and sticking up on end.  He didn’t need Derek to raise his eyebrows at his appearance to understand that.

 

“That you and Laura were an item in college?” Derek asked.  “Yeah, there were pictures on Facebook.  Mom showed them to me. I’m not sure why.”

 

What?  An item in… what?  Oh, _an item_.  Did people besides Derek Hale even say that anymore?

 

“Laura and I never… any of what you’re thinking!” Stiles answered indignantly.  Then, he toned it down a little because Derek was giving him a look that was between disbelief and brotherly concern.  “Neither of us are interested in each other that way, we just... We were kind of each other’s wingmen, but we also helped fend off people we had no interest in.  For a while she was my college BFF.”

 

This made Derek frown.  “Your BFF was always Scott.”

 

“Scott’s still my BFF, but there’s BFFs that really define the **_Forever_** caveat, and then there are like BFITM. Best Friends In The Moment.  Laura was that for me.  Did you really think Laura and I were something more than friends?”

 

“I guess not,” Derek mused, looking at Stiles.  “I just figured it was one of those things we don’t mention.”

 

“Yeah, like the fact Laura’s new hairstyle looks like a mullet?”

 

“Don’t say that so loudly,” Derek hissed, looking around the club for his sister.  Derek had always, always looked around the room for Laura when he thought something might make her angry.  Some things never changed.

 

Of course, now that Stiles had spent time with Laura, he didn’t really blame Derek.  He’d once put Laura up for a weekend in his dorm room after a minor fire in her apartment building and she’d been impossible.  Impossible.

 

Plus, she’d seduced his virgin roommate and Stiles had to put up with questions about where Laura was, and what she was doing, for the next four years.

 

Laura?  She was the most awesome, terrible friend ever.  Everyone had the one friend that made their life exciting but exhausting – and Laura was Stiles’.

 

“Does she know?” Stiles asked, leaning close to Derek like they were sharing a secret.

 

Derek nodded.  “It was an emergency cut after she had an incident with a candle in the bath that left some of her hair singed.  When she saw it she made the hairdresser cry.  Then she sat in her car in the parking lot and sobbed for thirty minutes until Cora was able to pick her up and drive her home.”

 

“That’s…” Stiles should say it was enough about hair for one conversation but, well…

 

“She’s getting it fixed when they get back to Seattle.” 

 

Stiles wasn’t sure how.  Maybe if Laura dyed it a drastic colour and pretended she was aiming for the lack of symmetry on purpose.  He’d seen people pull off similar looks all the time.  On Laura?  Not so much.

 

“You guys are so boring,” Laura said dramatically, looping her hands beneath Derek’s arms and dragging him away from the table.  Derek looked like he was resisting for a moment before he stood with an intense roll of his eyes and a huffing sigh that Stiles could actually see.  He allowed his sister to lead him on to the dance floor, Laura beckoning for Stiles to join them the entire time.  “Stiles!” Laura screamed over the techno music.  “Come grind my brother.”

 

Those were words Stiles had hoped to never, ever hear.

 

Lie.

 

But, well… it was awkward to be encouraged to dance all up on that by Derek’s sister, so he slid up in front of Derek and left the dance club version of acceptable distance between them, which meant that Stiles could basically hear anything Derek said, could feel the heat radiating from his body, but their dicks weren’t that close to accidentally touching.

 

Then Laura curled herself around Stiles’ back, her arms coming around him so she could grab Derek’s hands and pull them towards her, effectively creating a Stiles sandwich.  Derek’s face did this depressing thing where his eyes squinted in a pained expression and then his countenance completely shut off, like he wasn’t allowing himself to even think about how bad this was, he was just coping and waiting for his daily quota of sisterly punishment to be over.

 

Laura rested her chin on top of Stiles’ right shoulder so she could look at Derek.  Stiles couldn’t see her, but he could see the way Derek’s eyes spanned over to her.  Derek’s solid chest was pressed against his, and it didn’t really matter that Derek didn’t seem to be able to catch on to the rhythm of techno holiday music, because Stiles had enough below-the-waist rhythm to carry all three of them.

 

Hales, it seemed, couldn’t dance.

 

“To think,” Laura said in an amused tone.  Stiles knew that tone well.  Laura saying something in that tone was always funny, but never to everyone involved.  Sometimes, only to herself.  Derek seemed to understand that too, because he gave Laura a look with his lips entirely pursed into a thin line.  “This time next year we’re going to be one big family.  I think this should be an annual tradition.  Where’s Cora?  She should be in this lovefest of family unity.”

 

Stiles wasn’t sure Derek actually heard all of that, but he seemed to get the basics if the glare he levelled at Laura was any indication.  He looked towards the ceiling and shook his head in exasperation, before leaning to Stiles’ left so that his thigh slid along the outside line of Stiles’ and his scruff scraped along Stiles’ cheek.  It was an evasive tactic, definitely, but it also made a buzz of pleasure run down Stiles’ back, nerve endings all lighting up at once like twinkle lights turned on – a circuit caused by the shock of touch and how much Stiles wanted it to continue.

 

He just needed someone to break the current running through him, then it would be ok.  Instead Laura physically bumped into him, causing him to press closer to Derek for just a second.  That second was enough for Stiles to realize that the way he felt now wouldn’t be over once they exited the club.  The way Derek felt against him, solid and slightly sweaty, and not nearly as stiff as he assumed would be ingrained into his head. 

 

He didn’t even notice Laura leaving as he danced with Derek, not until she came back and physically forced Cora into their family love fest, somehow herding the three of them out of the club before Stiles really understood what was happening.  They fell out of the door, limbs flailing and feet skidding over the fresh rain that had frozen on the ground in the last hour.  Derek turned and steadied his sisters, particularly Laura in her five inch heels, and it loosened a piece of Stiles’ heart that wondered how deep the antagonism went between them.  It was entirely surface deep, Stiles realized as Laura’s hand clasped around his arm and pulled him into the pile, laughing at her near fall.  The four of them were smooshed together, and Laura’s laughter was infectious.

 

“I always wanted siblings,” Stiles found himself blurting out, and had to resist the urge to cover his mouth with his hands, because he’d always maintained that Scott was the only one he was allowed to consider brother by proxy.

 

“I always wanted Stiles as my brother,” Laura cooed, patting Stiles’ cheek.   “He’s way more fun than the current.”

 

“I never wanted a brother,” Derek answered.  “Sisters are bad enough.”

 

“Both of you are emotionally stunted,” Cora told them with a roll of her eyes.  “Just admit you love each other.”

 

“No,” Derek grunted stubbornly.

 

~

 

John had taken one look at Laura’s hangover eyes and Stiles’ clear exhaustion, clapped Derek on the shoulder, and said “you kids don’t mind if Talia and I take my car and the four of you follow?”

 

Stiles kind of minded.  Cora looked like she was going to grow claws an eviscerate anyone who came close to her.

 

And he had a very healthy fear for the Hale women.

 

The four of them drove to the mountains in Derek’s SUV, a vehicle Stiles would have expected from the kid he had known.  It would fit his worldview of Derek if he didn’t also know Derek owned a really gorgeous Camaro.  The Camaro was an unexpected addition to the Derek Hale he’d once known who spent most of his time with his eye behind a camera.  Derek hadn’t been the yearbook photographer, or worked for the crappy Beacon Hills High newspaper (that was more like a newsletter). 

 

Instead, Derek had wandered around the preserve and took pictures of trees and small woodland creatures, or sometimes he wandered around the industrial area on the east side of town that had slowly become abandoned in the 90s when their rubber plant closed down.   Mrs. Mahoney used to beg him to take pictures for one of the school clubs, citing how amazing it would look on his college application to be involved in extracurricular activities, and Stiles could vaguely remember Derek being convinced for about a week.  Stiles didn’t remember much about high school, but he clearly remembered that a picture existed, somewhere, of him crossing the finishing line at a track meet, but because of the composition and the angle Derek had managed to get, it looked like Stiles was winning gold at the Olympics.  Derek hadn’t lasted long doing photography for school because he tended to immerse himself right in whatever activity he was capturing on camera, so that day he’d run right out onto the track to get the picture of Stiles, and a few days later the girls volleyball team drilled a ball at him and broke his camera and his nose.

 

Stiles hadn’t been there, but he’d heard whispers that one of the players had said “you want it to feel real?” before spiking the ball at him. 

 

High school had been cruel.  The point of it was that Stiles could see Derek owning an SUV because he was a cautious kind of guy who protected the things he liked, and appreciated enjoying them in solitude.  The idea of Derek owning an SUV so he could go take pictures in the mountains or other difficult terrain made a lot of sense.

 

The Camaro? Not so much.

 

Except, there had been that small part of Derek that had pushed the limits of safety in order to get the perfect shot, hadn’t there?

 

“We should play car games,” Stiles said.  He had yelled shotgun so quickly after his dad told the four of them to take Derek’s SUV that his ears were still ringing.

 

Cora put her large headphones on in response.

 

“Eugh,” Laura moaned pitifully.  “Why would you do this to me?  You know how I get when I’m hung over?  I’m too old for this shit.”

 

Stiles _did_ know.

 

“I seem to remember Laura insisting on going dancing,” Stiles pointed out to Derek.

 

“I seem to remember Laura insisting it was a good idea to do jaeger bombs and initiate a neural link with that guy at the bar wearing the Pacific Rim t-shirt,” Derek answered.

 

Yes, and Stiles had been impressed with all three of the Hales for getting that reference.

 

“I seem to remember reminding her that we had to drive for four hours this morning.”

 

“You suck. So much,” she groaned, curling up in the back seat.  “This trip is going to last forever.”  Then, in a dire tone, she repeated: “foreeeeever.”

 

Five minutes later she was fast asleep.

 

Derek and Stiles didn’t have much to talk about on the drive there.  Stiles wasn’t sure what else there was to say beyond ‘so our parents are in love’ and ‘so I’ve never even seen your sister’s vagina, but she tells me it’s very well groomed’ with a bonus ‘so I didn’t recognise you at first until I creeped you through your window like I used to do as a teenage boy.’

 

Yeah, not much to say at all.

 

Not much that could, or _should,_ ever be said out loud, anyway.

 

“Oh my god!” Laura said, sitting up wildly, causing Cora to jerk and hit her head against the window.  “You both suck!  Both of you!”

 

“Laura?” Stiles prompted.

 

“I took an Ambien,” she responded, like that made absolute sense.  Stiles supposed in her mind it might.

 

Then she went back to sleep.

 

“Do you think she’ll be ok?” Derek asked quietly.

 

“Laura figured out how to avoid over-drinking years before I met her.  Hey, do you want to hear about the time she…”

 

~

 

Derek did want to hear about the time Laura went to a funeral and swore loudly in church, and the time she reduced a group of misogynistic dillweeds to tears, and the time she wore curtains for Halloween as a last ditch effort to find a costume and quoted Gone with the Wind to everyone and only one person understood her obscure reference.

 

They’d been at a party mostly made up of English majors.

 

Though… Derek wasn’t as amused by the last one as he had been by the others, but he was sufficiently entertained on the drive by all the awesome and/or embarrassing things Laura did that year she and Stiles were inseparable. 

 

By the time they pulled up to the resort, Cora and Laura were awake and staring out the window.  “Wow, Derek,” was all Laura said until they were in front of the lobby.  “Later nerds.”

 

Derek reached out and touched Stiles’ arm, stopping him from opening his door.  “We’re not staying here.”

 

“What?” Stiles asked in confusion. 

 

“I booked a cabin.  There are two bedrooms, so you don’t have to worry about space, but I thought you should know before we check in that you won’t be in the main hotel.”

 

Eugh, did Derek want to get away from his family so badly that he was making Stiles stay in some remote cabin?  There better be electricity.  And running water.

 

“Fine,” he answered tersely, because Derek was offering him a place to stay and Stiles wouldn’t complain about that.  To his face.  Instead he got out of the SUV and went to go find his dad.

 

~

 

Stiles was jealous as hell that everyone got to stay in the hotel section of the cushy resort and he was forced to stay in a boring log cabin about half a mile away.  The resort had wifi, the cabin hardly picked up a signal.  The resort had food and room service and meals included right in the bill, the cabin had all that if you wanted to walk half a mile (but with the bonus of a well-stocked fridge).  The resort had a pool and a sauna and some rooms had hot tubs, the cabin had a tub/shower combo.  The resort had a spa, and the cabin had a patch of mud outside from where the last person who had parked in the driveway out front had gotten stuck, and Stiles had slipped on an ice patch and almost faceplanted in it.

 

That was like a spa, right?

 

The cabin had Derek, but Stiles wasn’t sure where he stood on whether that was a pro or con.

 

The resort had Laura and his dad though, two of his favourite people.

 

Maybe that evened out.

 

“This is amazing,” Stiles said, sipping on the hot chocolate he had grabbed from the actual hot chocolate bar set up beside the fireplace.  There were also a few options for tea and coffee, but it was the first time Stiles had ever seen more than one option of hot chocolate made from scratch, rather than a few packets of instant stuff as an afterthought.

 

“Ah huh,” Cora answered.  “I’m going upstairs to my room now.  Don’t follow me like an earnest puppy.”

 

Stiles had never been the earnest puppy, that had always been Scott.  Stiles was the mischievous puppy who was too curious for his own good and got porcupine quills in his nose.

 

Stiles didn’t need her, or any company.  He had his hot chocolate.  It tasted like melted chocolate and marshmallows and he kind of wanted to dive into it.  He wanted to try all of the kinds, and was dedicated to tasting at least three of them before leaving the resort to go back to his cabin.  Derek was across the room talking to his mother, Stiles’ dad was nowhere to be seen, and Laura was skinny dipping in some hotspring in the opposite direction of the ski hill.

 

That would have been a nice addition to the cabin, Stiles considered crossly.  Why didn’t they have direct access to a hotspring?

 

Stiles was glad to know that Derek was back, though.  He’d left shortly after supper to go back to the cabin and for a while Stiles considered that he wouldn’t return so that Stiles would be forced to walk back.  He thought the resort might have a shuttle service for people who didn’t want to drive their cars up to the main parking lot in order to go skiing, but no such luck.  The concierge had told Stiles that they did, once upon a time, but that only about one person a week wanted to use it, so it wasn’t worth keeping up.

 

As the one person a week, Stiles wasn’t sure if that was fair or not.

 

He finished his drink sooner than he thought considering he had no one to talk to, and claimed a corner by the (hot beverage) bar for himself.  He was halfway through his third mug when he noticed Derek heading for the door, and Stiles hurried to catch up to him because there was no way he was being left behind.

 

He was lonely and bored.  He expected that from Beacon Hills when his dad was working, but in Beacon Hills he’d have access to Netflix on more than just his phone (and no headphones – talk about impolite, and Stiles wasn’t that guy).

 

Lie.  Someone had to ask him to turn off Breaking Bad or they’d spoil the season finale.

 

By the time he caught up to Derek, they were halfway through the parking lot.  The lights from the ski hill were bright enough that the entire area was lit up, and even without the ski hill, there were twinkle lights coating _everything_.

 

Stiles couldn’t see the SUV anywhere, but it was so cold he thought he might be suffering from hypothermia. 

 

“Where’d you park?” Stiles asked, already shivering in his thin jacket.  He had brought a thicker one, an old monstrosity from high school he’d dug out of a back closet.  It smelled like leather and old potpourri from the forgotten clothes around it, but it was warm. 

 

It was still in his suitcase.

 

He’d left it in Beacon Hills for a reason when he moved out, though, so he wasn’t wearing it unless he absolutely had to.

 

Reason: it was really ugly.

 

“I walked here,” Derek answered, giving Stiles a look like he was crazy to think that Derek would drive half a mile in this weather.

 

Well, Stiles thought Derek was _absolutely nuts_ for wanting to walk a mile in this weather.  Derek might think it was balmy, compared to Minnesota or Canada, or whatever freezing arctic wasteland he’d just rolled out of not to find this weather cold, but Stiles thought it was absolutely freezing.

 

“Seriously?” Stiles asked through chattering teeth.  “Did you even consider me in that decision?”

 

“Yeah, I did,” Derek answered, shoving his hands in his pockets.  “It’s only half a mile.  You used to be able to run that in less than two minutes.”  Derek took in Stiles with the narrowed eyes of someone judging current Stiles against past Stiles.  “I presumed you still could.”

 

“Well!” Stiles answered indignantly.  _Only_ half a mile in temperatures below the freezing point.  Just below (or maybe slightly above) freezing! That was cold!  What the hell, Derek Hale?  “I probably could if it wasn’t freezing out!”

 

Yeah, right.  Stiles wasn’t even sure he could run a quarter of a mile in under two minutes these days.

 

Lie. Stiles could.

 

Derek gave him this look of extreme judgment from where he was standing beneath a street light, his breath creating a white mist in the air in front of his face.  The way he huffed in exasperation was obvious when Stiles could actually see the air emerging from his lungs.

 

Stiles just shivered and trudged along after him, regretting wearing his sneakers, his nice jacket, and pretty much agreeing to leave Beacon Hills at all.  His dad would say he should be grateful Derek was willing to give up his solitude so Stiles could join his family for the holidays, but his dad wasn’t there, traipsing through the woods behind someone crazy enough he looked like he was enjoying the walk.

 

That was just irrational.  Sure it was pretty.  Sure there were the occasional snowflake, and the path was well-lit in a way that catered to the crazies, but Stiles wasn’t enjoying it.

 

Not one bit.

 

Lie. Maybe he was enjoying it a little, but if he lost a toe he’d complain about this moment for the rest of his life.

 

~

 

Losing a toe was a legit concern, Stiles realized, staring down at his feet.  One sock was off, the other on, and he looked woefully exposed.

 

Over exposed.  To the elements.

 

“Should my toes be this colour?” Stiles asked, pulling off his second damp sock to show Derek his feet.  His toes were a bright red colour and felt both like they were numb and on fire.

 

Derek swore and called him an idiot under his breath.  Considering how cold Stiles was, he concurred.  “Sit down and massage circulation back into them, they’ll be fine.”

 

“It’s not frostbite is it?”  Stiles questioned in a panicked tone, immediately doing what Derek recommended.  The couch in the cabin was comfy – the squishy kind that Stiles liked.  He didn’t really see the point of sitting on something that was firm enough to give him back problems.  He was part of the slouching generation – maybe?  Stiles was pretty sure slouching wasn’t a generational thing.

 

“You grew up in Beacon Hills,” Derek answered, aggrieved, like he didn’t understand how Stiles could leave the town for almost a decade and not remember all the facts about frostbite he’d learned as a child.

 

Yeah, well excuse you Derek Hale.  Stiles had moved south the first moment he was able to, and then once he acclimated to the weather in Los Angeles, he moved even further south.  He was an international border away from being as close to the equator as he could get and still live in a sizeable city in the same state as his dad.  He wasn’t used to this BS anymore.

 

“Will I lose a toe or not?” Stiles asked point blank, because given Derek’s reaction, he assumed not, but he couldn’t be sure.

 

“Not,” Derek snapped.  “I’ll find you a bowl of warm water,” he promised, leaving the room and going in the opposite direction of the kitchen.  In fact, it looked like Derek was heading for his bedroom.

 

Stiles craned his neck around to watch Derek disappear down the hallway.  Was he coming back?  Stiles watched for a moment and then decided that no.  Probably not.

 

There was absolutely no way he was spending any amount of time outside again.  His toes ached and stung a lot.

 

A little.

 

Ok, so they’d stopped feeling like the blood rushing to them was setting them on fire, but still.  That couldn’t be healthy.  The resort had to have some kind of indoor activities.  There was a large coffee table book on the table in front of him with the name of the place on the cover, that was a good place to start looking for cookie eating contests or something Stiles was more comfortable with, right?

 

Only, the first picture he saw was one of someone doing some kind of extreme skiing trick Stiles wasn’t even sure he’d seen in the Olympics.  The next page was titled “for those of you not as confident on the slopes” and had a picture of a hill so steep it looked like a cliff side.

 

Stiles noped his way out of that.  There were absolutely zero chances of that happening.

 

He’d sent about five Snapchats of Derek’s back to Laura, chronicling his hiking adventure right up to his red toes.

 

New text from Laura:

_Signed you up with me for mud wraps and trip out to hotsprings. I know how much you hate snow._

 

New text from Laura:

Just please PLEASE stop sending me pics of Derek’s ass.

 

“Your sister’s amazing,” Stiles called out to Derek when he heard the bedroom door open again.  Derek was standing at the end of the couch holding one of those pulsating water foot massage things towards him.  “You’re pretty amazing too,” Stiles said, placing it on the floor and immediately shoving his feet into it.  It wasn’t pulsating, probably because the power cord was still dangling in Derek’s hand, but Stiles definitely felt better.

 

Derek moved around the couch to plug it in.

 

Yeah, totally amazing.  And not just his ass in jeans, which was killing Stiles a little now that Derek was close up.  It was bad because Stiles kept trying to search his memory for what Derek’s butt looked like back in high school, and all he was able to come up with was the time Cora pantsed him.

 

So flat.  Very flat.

 

Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but now it definitely did not seem flat.  Stiles kind of wanted to know Derek’s workout routine, but at the same time he really didn’t.  There was no way he was making exercising a priority in his free time, since he got so very little of it.  He did need to keep a certain standard of athletics and health for his job, which was why he had kept with running, but he’d really have to step up his game in a way he didn’t have the commitment for to achieve results like that.

 

Spare time?  What was that?

 

He was practically selling his soul to take off enough time to return to BH for the holidays this year, and what did he get in return?  A complete lack of the usual traditions between the Stilinski family.  It kind of…

 

Well, it hurt a bit.  He’d done his best to replicate some of them when he was alone for the holidays during the last few years, but it hadn’t been the same.  He was doing his best not to feel robbed, and it helped that Talia seemed amazing for his father (and not just because she had him on some kind of healthy living kick that Stiles had never been able to force on his dad).

 

“Where’s the tv?” Stiles asked, looking around for a hidden panel or the remote, or any sign really.

 

Derek shrugged, and left for his room again.

 

“No, really Derek, where’s the tv!?”

 

~

“Do you think Derek’s hot?” Laura asked, lounging against the back of the natural hot springs.  She was eying him with this intent expression that told him that this wasn’t just a simple question. 

 

Stiles had watched too much Bones and CSI for this to be too comfortable.  He’d kicked around a bit to see if he could feel any bodies squishing between his toes before he sat.  It was probably safe.

 

“Hotter than these hot springs,” Stiles muttered in return, because the water was only pleasantly warm.  A compliment was a compliment, but she could take that however she wanted.

 

“Yeah, you want to be inside him too?” Laura asked, once again taking things a bit too far.

 

Stiles leaned his head back and didn’t answer her.  She kicked his foot with hers to make him respond, but it just made him jump about a foot in the air and glare at her for startling her.

 

He’d definitely watched too many crime shows with hot springs.

 

The only thing that would have been worse is if he’d yelled ‘dead body!’ and did a karate chop.

 

Lie.

 

He did do that.

 

“Well?” Laura said expectantly, staring up at him with her impervious (to Stiles’ aggressive awkwardness) expression.

 

“Well?” Laura repeated.  “Stiles?  Derek’s hot, right?  You know these things.  I just want to know objectively.”

 

“Like burning,” Stiles answered in a lifeless tone, because he had a bad feeling about what he was committing to.

 

Laura just grinned at him and then jabbed the back of his knee, pulling him back into the sulphur scented water.  Stiles popped out of the water, trying not to gag on it, just as a snowflake fell from the sky and landed on his shoulder.

 

~

 

“Oh,” Stiles said with dismay, standing in the open doorway with one arm in the sleeve of his jacket.   The snow was coming down pretty severely, about three inches already gathered on the roof of Derek’s SUV, and it had only been flurries when he’d checked less than an hour before.  The wind had picked up too, taking the idyllic winter wonderland and creating it into a thing with teeth.

 

Teeth of sharp, cold little water droplets that could easily kill a man in a variety of ways.  He shivered and considered walking up to the lodge, but he could tell from the wind that it would be difficult walking against it.  He was more worried about way back.  The snow was already blinding, creating white-out conditions that made getting lost a real possibility.  Now he could still see the path through the trees, but in an hour?  In two?  He’d be stuck up there.

 

Nope, Stiles decided.  He’d been living in San Diego for too long.  Snow bothered him.

 

He liked his fingers and toes.

 

“Hey dad,” Stiles said, picking up his phone.  It had taken him fifteen minutes, but he’d eventually located the television the night before.  That had been an incredibly close call.  It was on mute in the background and Stiles could see that Elf was going to start in five minutes, which was _awesome_. 

 

Mostly awesome.  It did come out in 2003, which made him feel ridiculously old thinking that there were children out there now who thought of it as a Christmas Classic from before they were born.

 

Ouch.

 

“What is it, Stiles?”

 

“I’m not going to be coming up for supper, it’s really nasty out.  You should tell Derek to get his tush back here before it gets really bad and he has to enact one of those made for tv feel good movies about surviving against all odds in extreme conditions.”

 

Tush.  Stiles mouthed.  Wow, he said that out loud.

 

Well, it was a fine tush.  He spent a lot of time thinking about it the night before.

 

And not just _how_??

 

“He’s out snowshoeing.”

 

“He’s out snowshoeing?” Stiles echoed incredulously.  “It’s storming out there.”

 

“You’ve been living in San Diego for too long,” his dad answered.  “It’s a few flurries.”

 

As if his dad knew the difference.  Beacon Hills wasn’t exactly Beacon Mountains.  Sure, they sometimes got snow, but nothing major, and when they did the entire town shut down for about a day, unable to cope with the sudden influx of driving problems and not enough snowplows for the streets.

 

“Mark my words, dad,” Stiles said ominously.  “This is more than a few flurries.  We’re looking an actual storm.”

 

“I didn’t say it wasn’t…”

 

“The storm of the year!” Stiles continued.  “Snowpocalypse.  The snowmageddon.  A really fuckton of snow.”

 

“I wouldn’t go that far,” his father answered, completely unimpressed with Stiles’ dramatics.

 

“And when Derek goes missing you’ll have to explain to Talia why you didn’t send up the red flag sooner.”

 

“He’s not missing.  He’ll be fine.  Do you even know what Derek does for a living?”

 

He didn’t.  Heh.  Stiles had no idea what Derek did because Derek didn’t have Facebook.  Talk to Derek in person? Pfft, there hadn’t been a need to do that kind of catching up since 2006, and Stiles was grateful.  He didn’t want to have small talk with any of the people he went to high school with.  He’d kept in touch with one, maybe exchanged birthday wishes with three of them.

 

Derek?  Well, maybe Stiles wouldn’t mind learning more about him.  Maybe Stiles should try asking Derek what he did for a living.

 

“You don’t, do you?” his dad laughed.  “Derek will be fine.”

 

Well, that didn’t go as planned.  He wanted sympathy, not to be mocked.  He wanted… commiseration!

 

He didn’t know why he tried his dad in the first place.  His dad was really tough.  Once he’d walked around for days with a massive splinter in his foot and only got medical attention when it started to smell weird.  That was hardcore.

 

Well dad, he might actually freeze to death, so take that! 

 

So that left Laura.

 

 _Fuckton of snow_ , Stiles texted Laura. _Stuck in cabin._

 

New text from Laura:

_Woooooooooooooooooo. Sounds cosy. I hope you only have one bed._

 

_There are two._

 

New text from Laura:

_Noooooooooooooooo. But sharing body heat. I hope the power goes out._

 

_WTF Laura? Do you want to share body heat with Cora?_

 

New text from Laura:

_Cora doesn’t generate body heat, that’s why she wears so many scarves. But Derek? I’ve heard he’s hot like burning, and the two of you would be so attractive together I ache for the fact that I can never mentally picture it because we’re related._

 

_You’re so weird._

 

New text from Laura:

_Is why you like me._

 

_Yep. gtg move wood for the fire._

 

New text from Laura:

_Ooh, your forte._

 

Stiles knew something had to be done before it got too bad out.  He shoved his arms into his jacket and went out to the wood pile stacked out back and brushed snow off the tarp covering it.  Already, there was about an inch, and he was glad he thought to do this before it got buried completely.  He threw back the tarp dramatically and thought to grab about three pieces of firewood at a time, only… well, wood was heavier than it looked.

 

It took him about half an hour to bring in what looked like enough to survive the snowpocalypse, so long as the snowpocalypse only lasted a few days.  Then he considered what would happen if the weather app on his phone was wrong, something that happened about three times a week, and he went out and brought in enough for the week. 

 

New text from Laura:

_You move that wood, Stilinski. Rub it until it ignites._

 

New text from Laura:

_I’m not talking about your own._

 

New text from Laura:

_Are you really doing it?_

 

New text from Laura:

_Derek just walked into the lobby with a pair of snow shoes.  I feel betrayed._

 

New text from Laura:

_ARE YOU LITERALLY MOVING WOOD INTO THE CABIN OH MY GOD IT’S NOT EVEN SNOWING THAT BAD. You paranoid asshole._

 

Stiles found all the texts once he’d finished with the wood pile, and his poor fingers were aching from the exertion and the cold.  Contrary to popular (ok, Derek’s) belief, Stiles did remember a bit from the time when he grew up in colder areas than he was living now, and he knew that a good way to unthaw them was to stick them beneath his armpits.

 

So of course that’s how Derek found him.

 

Derek stomped in the door, coated in snow.   It stuck to his hat and his broad shoulders, clumps of it stuck to the bottom of his snowpants.  There were even flakes in his eyebrows, which was possibly the most amusing thing Derek had done since agreeing to putting Stiles up for the holiday. 

 

That wasn’t true.  When he deliberately honked the horn about fifteen minutes away from the resort and woke up both his sisters, Stiles had been pretty amused then too.

 

“Oh good,” Stiles said when Derek finished brushing off his jacket and hanging it up.  “I thought snow patrol might have to go get you.”

 

“It’s not bad out yet.”

 

No one was listening to him.  It was the storm of the century.

 

Derek paused and looked at the back door.  Stiles knew what he saw: a ton, but not literally as a measurement because there was a lot more than that, of wood.  “Did you bring in half the wood pile?” Derek asked incredulously, shaking his head.  “The cabin probably has bugs now.”

 

“I’d rather bugs than the alternative!” Stiles said pointedly.

 

Derek’s eyebrows scrunched together in confusion.  “The alternative being the wood pile stays out back?” he asked, looking at his phone.  “Oh.  You think the storm is going to get that bad?”

 

He said that in a ‘how quaint’ tone that put Stiles’ teeth on edge, because it was obvious to him that Derek had just read something about Stiles in a text.  Probably from Laura.

 

“Mark my words, Derek Hale,” Stiles said, pointing a finger in Derek’s direction before stomping to his room to change out of his wet jeans.  “Snowpocalypse.”

 

~

 

Stiles wasn’t even sure why Derek was back in the cabin making sandwiches when he’d walked into the resort not even thirty minutes before, according to Laura.  Stiles had no clue, and he was being willfully blind, because there was no way he was trying anything with his dad’s girlfriend’s (soon to be fiancé) son.  As far as Stiles was concerned, Derek was straight until proven otherwise, because that would make it easier for everyone involved.

 

Plus, it didn’t have to be anything other than Derek being supremely nice and keeping Stiles company as he was freaking out.

 

Or maybe there was nothing in the supper buffet that Derek could eat.

 

Stiles wasn’t think about it too much.  In fact, he was avoiding it by incessantly checking his weather app.  Then he checked the landline for the third time that hour.

 

No dial tone! He was kind of excited in that ‘I WAS RIGHT’ way people probably experienced right before dying from their conspiracy theory zombies/dinosaurs/aliens/The Day After Tomorrow attack.

 

“The phone went out,” Stiles said to Derek, eyes widened and slightly panicked.  That was the first sign that this was more than just a small snowfall.  This was an actual storm, one where they were stuck in this cabin, cut off from civilization.  “We’re trapped here without communication.”

 

Derek took out his cell phone and looked at the screen.  “I have three bars,” he argued.

 

“I meant the landline!” Stiles argued.  “Just you wait, once the power goes out, you’ll be happy I moved in all the wood.”

 

“Yes Stiles,” Derek answered sardonically.  “I’m sure you’re great at piling wood.”  His expressive eyebrows told Stiles exactly what Derek meant.

 

Stiles gaped at him for a moment.  “Your sister said the exact same thing.”

 

“We are sibling,” Derek said, sitting next to Stiles on the couch for the last half hour of Elf.

 

After Elf, they watched some terrible Hallmark movie about a [fake relationship for the holiday](622385)s, which sounded like a terrible idea as far as Stiles was concerned.  He was having a difficult enough time faking the fact that Derek’s sandwich didn’t taste bland.  Relationships were beyond him.

 

Derek actually managed to get a fire going, so that was good.  Derek lit his fire and all that.

 

Mostly, it was just comfortable sitting next to Derek on the couch, laughing at how terrible and cheesy the movie they were watching was.  It made a little ball of warmth in his chest echo the heat he could feel from the fire, the fire Derek built despite not believing the power was going to go out.

 

Maybe the romantic atmosphere was getting to him.

 

It was swee…

 

The lights flickered for a moment and then went out entirely, leaving them in the glow of the fire.

 

“HA!” Stiles crowed, jumping off the couch.  “I told you so.”  He scrambled for his phone and scrolling for a number.  “I told you so dad!” he yelled once his father had picked up the line.  “SNOWPOCALYPSE.”

 

Derek grabbed the phone from him, both of them scrambling for the device for a second before Derek was able to get control and press the End Call.  “Our parents are probably enjoying the romantic atmosphere right now.  Don’t ruin it.”

 

Stiles wrinkled his nose.  “I hope enjoying the romantic atmosphere isn’t a euphemism.”

 

Derek rolled his eyes so hard Stiles wondered if it was physically possible for them to snap off the neural nerve and whatever other things kept them in the eye socket, roll off his face, and out the front door with how unimpressed his eyes seemed with Stiles.  “Your father is going to propose,” he reminded Stiles.  “Don’t be a child, it’s not a euphemism.”

 

Lie.  It was as much as a euphemism as Stiles wanted it to be. Lalalalalalalalala. He was 5.

 

“Wait.  This cabin seems like a better option for snuggling by a fire,” Stiles said pointedly, gesturing to the fire and the fact that their scramble for the phone had left them more or less entwined with each other.  Accidental romance. Whoops.  “More than the hotel rooms at the resort.”

 

“They were supposed to be in this one, but mom wanted a hot tub.  She said your dad’s joints ache after he’s been out in the cold.”

 

“TMI!” Stiles exclaimed. 

 

“She wants him to be able to kneel properly… when he pops the question.  Said she didn’t want to have to help him to his feet afterwards because it would ruin the setting,” Derek continued.  “So they get the room in the resort and I got the cabin away from that entire thing.  It seemed like a good deal.”

 

‘Before you came along’ was kind of unspoken.  Yes, thank you Derek.  It wasn’t like Stiles had intended to crash his own family’s holiday plans.  Surprise visits were supposed to be a good thing.  His dad wasn’t really someone who enjoyed leaving home during this time of year – he was more the type to be overworked and then crash on the couch in his boxers eating turkey for the one day off he usually took.

 

“It won’t be too bad,” Derek said, and for a second Stiles thought he was still talking about the marriage, which duh! Then Stiles realized Derek was talking about their situation. 

 

“How is it not too bad, Derek?” Stiles demanded.  “We’re snowed in!  How did I know this was going to happen?  This is how horror movies start!”  Or cheesy holiday love stories, but those weren’t a real thing.

 

“We won’t go cold thanks to your foresight, there’s ample food,” Derek pointed out.  “We’re at a resort, if there’s danger we’ll probably be evacuated.”

 

“IT’S THE SNOWPOCALYPSE!” Stiles answered with a sweep of his arm.  “THEY SHOULD BE EVACUATING US NOW!”

 

And that was how Stiles ended up tucked under a blanket on the couch with a hot chocolate in his hand.  Derek did not deal well with dramatic.

 

~

 

New text from Laura:

_I’m going to impart some knowledge on you._

 

New text from Laura:

_Can you handle it?_

 

 _Of course I can,_ Stiles texted back.  Honestly, whatever she had to say she’d probably said worse to him in person.

 

New text from Laura:

_Baby can you handle this?_

 

New text from Laura:

_Baby can you handle this?_

 

New text from Laura:

_Baby can you handle this?_

 

New text from Laura:

_I don’t think you can handle this._

 

Stiles sighed and looked towards Derek rummaging through the stocked bar. _Stop quoting Destiny’s Child at me and just tell me!_

 

New text from Laura:

_Queen Beyoncé anticipated that you’re not ready for this jelly._

 

New text from Laura:

_But I’ll tell you anyway._

 

New text from Laura:

_Are you ready?_

 

New text from Laura:

_I’m telling you anyway._

 

New text from Laura:

_Derek’s gay._

 

Laura was right.  Stiles couldn’t handle that.  He looked up to see the way Derek’s forearms kind of glinted in the firelight in a way Stiles was sure was mostly in his head.

 

New text from Laura:

_And you’re his type, right down to your looks and the way you prefer switching._

 

New text from Laura:

_Have fun. Use condoms._

 

“There’s a bottle of wine,” Derek said, pulling the cork off it in a smooth flex of his arms that had Stiles almost whimpering.

 

“Yeah?” Stiles asked.  “That seems fitting…” he trailed off.  Yeah, of a romantic atmosphere.

 

Derek raised his eyebrow as he gave Stiles a wine glass. 

 

“Of all my whining,” Stiles finished lamely.

 

~

 

“Most people from high school don’t recognise me,” Derek said, sprawled out across the fur rug in front of the fire, relaxed from the wine with his cheeks flushed and his eyes slightly out of focus as he stared at the ceiling.  His shirt was riding up a bit and Stiles could see the line of his practical belt and where it had dug temporary grooves into the flesh of his stomach from the way he’d been sitting.  Stiles was starting to sweat, and it wasn’t because of the heat from the fire.

 

That was definitely one way to take his mind off the storm going on outside. 

 

“Do you want them to?” Stiles questioned.  It was a loaded question because it meant that Derek was hung up on what those people thought of him in a way teenage Derek had never cared.

 

Derek shrugged, throwing a large splinter of wood he had been playing with into the fire.  “I don’t particularly care.  The look on their faces are occasionally amusing if they ever put two and two together.”

 

“I bet,” Stiles snickered.  “Do you remember Hannah?  She’s a cashier at the Safeway now and she told me I look exactly the same.”  He gestured to his hair.  “I have more of this, for one, and I think I grew into my face.  But yeah… I guess I do.”

 

“She asked me out,” Derek said, looking at the fire, turning his face away from Stiles.  “I told her I could never date someone who tormented me in high school.  I reminded her of the time she… well, she wasn’t a nice person.”

 

Stiles went rigid.  “Derek,” he said, unsure how to broach the subject when Derek himself hadn’t even been able to say the words.  Hannah had been the one who spiked the volleyball at Derek’s head.  It had taken Derek months to save up for the replacement parts for his camera, and if he looked really carefully there was still a small bump on Derek’s patrician nose.

 

Stiles had been looking really closely.

 

Derek cleared his throat.  “She argued with me that she was a different person now, and it hardly mattered because clearly I grew up gorgeous and strong.”

 

“That doesn’t sound like much fun,” Stiles decided.  “That sounds kind of horrifying, actually.  I guess the… and don’t take this the wrong way because I don’t mean that you ever were… but the whole ugly duckling story isn’t that great when you turn into a swan.  You still remember what it was like before, you’re still the same person.  It’s kind of… a curse.”

 

Derek seemed to be considering that for a moment.  “Erica.  Erica Reyes.  Do you remember her?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“She’s a Victoria’s Secret supermodel now.  I think she has more fun with it than I do.  I heard she made Brad weep when he realized she’d asked him out in grade twelve.”

 

“No shit!” Stiles said in surprise, laughing.  “Victoria’s Secret?  Good on her.”

 

Derek cast an eye over to him.  “I’m surprised you didn’t know.  I remember that you had their calendar on your wall one year.  Your dad was furious.”  Derek looked amused and fond all at the same time.  The calendar had probably been one of the things Derek could see through the window.

 

Maybe what Stiles did in front of it a few times had been too, and it made him keenly embarrassed and yet overly hot to wonder if Derek had ever watched him through the window, which…

 

Nope.

 

Not thinking about that.

 

“I don’t… uh… have calendars of half-naked girls anymore.”

 

“You’ve graduated to calendars of nude girls or you’re matured enough to hide your porn?” Derek teased, turning on his side so he could look at Stiles, his head pillowed by one of his biceps.

 

Stiles couldn’t help but grin back at him.

 

It was such an innocent question, but Stiles knew that he should probably correct Derek’s assumption now, before it became a lie.  “I should reword that,” he said.  “I don’t have calendars of half-naked _girls_ anymore.”

 

Well, more re-emphasize, but whatever.

 

“Oh,” Derek said, unconcerned.  “That explains why you recognized me right away.”

 

Uh. No.  Why did Derek think that Stiles had recognized him?  It was because Stiles was an awkward fuck and waved to the strange Hale, wasn’t it?  Thank goodness.  He’d never been so glad that he was weird sometimes, because it meant that Derek didn’t know that he was just like everyone else they’d grown up with and hadn’t recognized Derek, even in front of his own house.

 

“I knew you better,” Stiles responded to, and that was true.  He’d put the hints together immediately after seeing Derek in his bedroom.  That was all it took.  It wasn’t like Stiles had tragically gone days without knowing until he heard someone say Derek’s name.

 

Derek rolled onto his back and stretched, his shirt riding higher up his ribs than it had been and his entire body taut and flexed in an arc.  He rubbed at a spot right below his navel before scratching down his happy trail in one long swipe until his fingers tucked slightly beneath his waistband.

 

Fuck.  Fuck.  FUCK.

 

Stiles froze as their eyes met, his tongue still trailing along his lips from the sight.  “Sorry, I…

 

Derek sat up.  “You used to watch me then, too.  Sometimes.  Not often, but sometimes I would take off my shirt and you’d be looking at me through the window and I thought...” he shrugged. “It was a long time ago.

 

Things just clicked, then, because oh fuck, he had.  Stiles opened his mouth to say something, but he didn’t know what to say, and in that moment he realized how fuzzy his head was from the wine and the heat and the company, because it was rare that he _didn’t know what to say._

 

“It’s not important,” Derek cut him off, getting to his feet.  “I’m tired, I’m going to bed.”

 

“Ok,” Stiles said, putting down his bottle of wine and scrambling to his feet.  “Ok, but I’m sorry. Just…” he grabbed Derek’s arm.  “There were a lot of things I was confused about back then, and I…”

 

Derek turned on him, finger raised and about an inch from his face.  Derek could have poked out his eye.  Jeez.  “You didn’t have any lasting impact on my life, Stiles.  We weren’t friends, not close ones.  Stop apologizing for nothing.”  Then he brushed Stiles off and disappeared into his bedroom.

 

~

 

It was still storming when Stiles woke up. It looked a little like television fizz from his childhood when he couldn’t get the damn antennae to work.  There was a bit of picture, but not enough that he could see much of anything except the fact that it was still storming.

 

Why? he sighed dramatically.  Why? How? Why?  Why was he snowed in with a ridiculously attractive Derek Hale?  Why was he starting to think that out of all the mistakes he ever made that not noticing Derek Hale sooner was one of the worst?  Why was he the Hannahs of the world?  He didn't want to be one of the Hannahs of the world, he wanted to be one of the Stiles Stilinskis of the world, but he wasn't sure that actually mattered to Derek.

 

Stiles hid in his room for half the morning, playing Candy Crush on his phone and wondering if this was an opportunity or one of the unluckiest things that ever happened to him.

 

“Are you making lunch for both of us?” Stiles asked, emerging from his bedroom to find Derek standing in front of the stove.  Sleeping without power hadn’t been as cold as he thought it would be.  Apparently fireplaces actually worked or something.  For a second he’d been confused that Derek wasn’t doing something entirely rustic and cooking the soup over the fire, but the lights were also on.  So the power was back, at least.  The phone line was still out, though.

 

It didn’t feel as dire when Derek was standing in the kitchen barefoot, pouring chicken noodle soup from the pot into two bowls.

 

“If soup’s ok,” Derek answered, showing Stiles the can. 

 

Soup was more than ok, and if it turned out to be just as bland as Derek’s sandwiches, he could add salt and pepper to it.  He settled in at the table just as Derek put a bowl down in front of him.  Stiles smiled up at him, and took a sip from his spoon.

 

It wasn’t too bad.  Derek had obviously added something to the can, some kind of spice or something that didn’t make it taste like preservatives.

 

The silence felt a bit stifling, especially since Stiles should really be drinking coffee rather than a bowl of soup.  He hadn’t thought he’d slept in, but the bed had been warm and he’d been relaxed all day from the hot springs, even if he had carried a few cords of wood.

 

The wine.  The wine hadn’t helped.

 

“Are you living at home now?” Stiles asked, not sure if he was stepping into a quagmire of personal shit or not. 

 

Derek looked up at him from over his spoon of soup.  Stiles had no idea how Derek’s hand was that steady with the spoon, he’d have spilled half of it by now for sure.  “For a few months.  My apartment building in San Francisco is being rebuilt and it just seemed easier than finding a new place for short term.  I just need a homebase, my work can take me anywhere.”

 

“What do you do?” Stiles questioned, slurping up a spoonful of soup.

 

“I’m a photographer,” Derek said quietly.  It wasn’t that Stiles was surprised that Derek had actually followed his passion, it was that Stiles was surprised that he hadn’t known all along.  He and Laura never really talked about what her siblings were doing, but somehow he should have known that Derek would never have settled into anything else.

 

And that explained the spoon.  Steady hands and all.

 

“Yeah?” Stiles asked, unable to picture Derek taking pictures of weddings or babies.  “What kind of photography has you travelling so much?” 

 

“I contract out to adventure magazines and advertising companies,” he answered, breaking a few crackers into his soup.

 

“Anything I know?” Stiles asked, typing ‘Derek Hale photography’ into the search bar on his phone.  He came up with a site that was obviously the place Derek showcased his work, and it was all extremely… Stiles didn’t know how to label it.  Painfully good, of course, but also kind of frightening, because when Derek said ‘adventure magazines’ he meant that he was the photographer who would get the shot no one else could.  The one of the skier outrunning an avalanche, or the one perched at the top of a series of rapids.  It was hard enough doing those types of things without a camera in your hand, but with a camera?  “Oh,” Stiles blinked.

 

“I get paid to get the pictures other people can’t get,” Derek said with a hint of pride in his voice, his eyes focusing on Stiles with his face turned down towards his food, like Stiles’ reaction meant something to him and he had to see.

 

“This one reminds me of the picture you took of me running,” Stiles pointed out, tilting his phone towards Derek to show him one of a young woman jumping off a cliff with a bungee cord around her ankles and a serene expression on her face.  It wasn’t so much the subject matter as it was that Derek had managed to capture a moment like he was there, sharing the experience with the person.  The picture of Stiles always seemed to evoke the sense of victory, shared with the world but personal at the same time, like Derek was just getting a small glimpse, a small window of shared emotion that would exist forever, frozen in time.

 

Derek seemed to be entirely stationary over his soup.  Stiles wasn’t sure if he struck a nerve or if he was a little too close to the truth.

 

He shrugged, assuming that the problem was that he was entirely off base.  “You get that sense that you’re there, sharing the victory with me.  I feel the same thing when I look at this picture.  Like I’m there, sharing the experience.  That’s good, right?  That takes talent.”

 

“Yeah,” Derek answered.  “It should.”

 

~

 

“I think I’m going to make cookies,” Stiles announced, shoving the soup bowls into the dish washer.  He was really grateful the cabin wasn’t so rustic he had to wash them by hand.  He wandered into the living room to grab his iPad from the coffee table, pausing as his eyes caught the book still sitting there.  The style of the picture on the front looked familiar, and he ended up flipping through the credit pages.

 

“Part of the deal were the rooms this week,” Derek told him, watching as Stiles flipped through the book. 

 

It was really, really good.  “You did that?” Stiles asked, kind of in awe as Derek’s words hit him.  He looked up at Derek standing in the doorway of the kitchen, arms crossed over his chest.  “You made a deal to bring us here at Christmas, their busiest season I bet, just for… our parents, right?”

 

“Yeah,” he said, his toes sliding a bit over the gleaming hardwood, a clear picture of modesty.  “It’s not that big of a deal.  I’ve had other jobs this year that were lucrative, and mom refused to take rent money.  It was the least I could do.”

 

Stiles smiled up at him, closing the book with a promise to himself that he’d look through it more carefully later.  “That was nice of you,” he said, because he couldn’t really find the words to express how nice.  Derek had even invited him along, months ago, without Stiles really understanding why his dad and Laura were trying to get him to commit to plans so early.  “I think I can manage your mom’s cookies.  She sent me the recipe a few weeks ago.”

 

Derek seemed to light up.  He didn’t smile, but his entire body came to attention and his eyes widened just the slightest.  It was ridiculously cute.

 

“She didn’t make them this year,” Derek answered tentatively.

 

“Your mom’s cookies are the best!” Stiles said with a flourish, glad he had thought to save the recipe to his iPad instead of keeping it in his email.  The storm was making his connection to the internet sporadic.  He couldn’t even manage to watch Netflix.  That episode of Breaking Bad he was half way through was going to sit there forever!

 

Derek followed him into the kitchen, watching as Stiles took out all the ingredients, checking to make sure that they had everything.  He had to substitute baking chocolate for the chocolate chips the recipe called for, but it probably wasn’t that big of a deal, right?

 

Stiles’ cooking skills were about on par with Derek’s sandwich making skills, but he didn’t think he could mess these up too badly.

 

“How many cups does the recipe say?” Stiles asked a few minutes later, not sure it really mattered.  Half the ingredients were already coating the kitchen counter.  Derek had stopped overtly watching him, and was now covertly watching over the cover of a book, probably judging Stiles against his mother the entire time.

 

Which was really unfair.

 

Derek looked up at him and then over at the screen.  He scowled at the iPad for a second and then went back to his book.

 

“I’m kind of elbow deep in batter here, dude,” Stiles pointed out, exasperated. 

 

Derek actually sighed in response, like he was the one aggravated by the whole situation.  And ok, so they were stuck in a small cabin in the woods, tensions were running high, but that was (mostly) unwarranted, since Stiles was making Talia’s famous Christmas cookies.  Sure, he was making them because he was the one who really wanted cookies, but it wasn’t like he wouldn’t share them with Derek.

 

Then Derek pulled a pair of glasses out of his laptop bag and slid them on.

 

Stiles paused and took his hands out of the bowl of dough, giving Derek his full attention. 

 

Wooooow. 

 

Glasses.

 

Wow.

 

If he managed to get through the next fifteen seconds without knocking over the whole bowl of batter, a chair, and the iPad, it would be a miracle.  He wasn’t really in control of his limbs.  This was the Derek he remembered, a gossamer layer over top of the almost stereotypical attractive guy Derek had become.  There he was, thick rimmed glasses, top teeth biting into his lip as he frowned across the table to read what Stiles had asked him to.

 

“Two,” he said finally, slipping his glasses down his nose to look at Stiles above them.  “Was there something else you needed to know?”

 

UNF.

 

Damn.  Stiles had never gotten the whole librarian thing before, but there it was: glasses.  Playing with glasses.  Glasses slipping down someone’s nose.  It felt kind of… intimate or something.  Like he was seeing Derek slide down his pants, which he was now mentally picturing, and oh wow that shouldn’t be a total surprise, but it was.  He was really attracted to Derek Hale and his stupid eyes and his surprising body and his dry wit.

 

“No?” Stiles answered, sure his voice would come out squeaky and strangled, but instead it was normal.  Maybe he needed to know if Derek would be adverse to Stiles taking off his glasses, slowly, and then putting them on his own face.  Maybe, he also needed to know if Derek would be adverse to…

 

oh wow, ok. 

 

Sexual fantasy.

 

…to Derek wearing his glasses while on his knees in front of him, looking up at Stiles over the rims of them while sucking his cock, which was possibly one of the more awkward things to think of.

 

Stiles took the glasses from Derek's hands and lined them up with his face, slowly and carefully pushing them back up his nose.  "You have beautiful eyes."

 

"I... what?" Derek looked taken back. 

 

Stiles shrugged.  "You always did.”

 

“Well, they’re my eyes!” Derek answered, more baffled than anything else.

 

 _I want to do really dirty things to your brother_ Stiles texted Laura.  _I want him to do really dirty things to me._

 

New text from Laura:

_Get it. Peel off his clothes._

 

As if he needed that image too.  

 

Stiles might consider Derek's face unfair, but the cosy knit sweater that he was wearing was really playing dirty. 

 

And the sweater was really, really well fitting.  

 

"I want to rub my face all over your chest.  I mean sweater," Stiles blurted out.

 

"You've got flour on your cheek," Derek said with a complete lack of concern.  "This is cashmere. Please don't ruin it."

 

Oh yeah, Derek had known younger Stiles a bit too well.

 

~

 

Mid afternoon there was a knock on the door.  Stiles jumped from the couch, not sure what he was expecting as Derek moved to answer the door.  His sidearm was in his suitcase, but there was a poker for the fireplace a few feet from him.

 

“Good afternoon,” the guy said, wearing a jacket with the hotel logo on it.  He passed over a basket to Derek.  “Apologies for the phones being down.  Is your party well and accounted for?”

 

Stiles stared.  How the…

 

Derek shrugged.  “It’s just a little snow.  We have cell phones.”

 

“Good! Happy Holidays,” the guy said.

 

“What the hell?” Stiles questioned in confusion.  “We’re snowed in.  SNOWED IN.”

 

Derek shrugged again.  “They sent us eggnog and chocolates.”

 

Stiles’ brain was breaking.  “How did he get here?”

 

Derek stared at him.  “I didn’t hear a snow mobile.  Walked, maybe?  All-terrain vehicle parked at the edge of the driveway?”

 

“This doesn’t bother you?” Stiles questioned. 

 

“Why would it?”

 

 _Derek isn’t bothered by the hotel employee who just came to check on us_ , Stiles texted Laura.  _Weird, right?_

 

New text from Laura:

_Stiles, half the resort is out skiing.  The snow is like one of those really amazing things that coincidentally happens at xmas and everyone says is a miracle._

 

“I’m supposed to be the miracle,” Stiles muttered, actually pouting.  That was why he hadn’t told anyone he was coming home when he finally squared away the time, and look how that had turned out.

 

Derek just continued staring at him.

 

New text from Laura:

_You’re not going to die from it._

 

~

 

“Merry Christmas,” Stiles said, lifting his glass of eggnog.

 

“Merry Christmas,” Derek echoed the sentiment, though the Hales had never been particularly religious and the Stilinskis were Polish, which meant they had a whole set of their own traditions that didn’t entirely get adapted into the typical American Christmas – though, they did those too.  Stiles had always thought it was kind of nice, having both heritages at the holidays.   

 

“I’m going to be home for about four more days once we return to Beacon Hills.  You?”

 

“A week, then I have a shoot in Alaska.”

 

Derek Hale was so much cooler than anyone Stiles knew.  “Do you want to go on a date?”

 

Derek froze.  “I…” he hedged, looking completely taken back.  Stiles felt that old sense of insecurity pop up at the look on Derek’s face.  He felt like he was being rejected even before Derek said anything.  “It’s not really smart for me to get involved with anyone.  I’m hardly ever home.”

 

“Would you like to, though?” Stiles questioned, his heart definitely sinking because that was a brush off if he’d ever heard one, but if there was one thing Stiles knew about Derek, it was that he’d make personal sacrifices so the people around him weren’t inconvenienced by the things he did.

 

“Yeah,” Derek seemed to decide.  “Yeah, I think I’d like that.”

 

Oh.  Stiles hadn’t expected Derek to actually say that.  He grinned at him across the table.  “Super.”

 

He probably should have stopped drinking the eggnog after the first glass, but instead he was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, flipping through the book of Derek’s photographs the resort was using.

 

“You’re so fucking talented,” Stiles said mournfully into his eggnog.  “I want to sit on your dick.”

 

Derek choked on his drink.  “I think you’ve had enough.”

 

“I haven’t had anny,” Stiles answered, drawing out the last word with a pout.  “But I want it all.”  He squinted at Derek.  “Unless you want some.  You look like you might, and I’d like to give it to you if you want.”

 

Thank you Laura.

 

Derek mouth turned down but a flush appeared on his neck, creeping up to the tips of his ears.  “What did you put in this?” he asked, smelling the drink.  “Vodka? Rum?”

 

“What?” Stiles asked.  “Nothing, I’m completely sober.  _We’re_ completely sober.”

 

“That’s,” Derek answered, unable to finish the sentence. 

 

“Think about it,” he took the last cookie off the plate and winked at Derek, picking his book up.  Aww yeah, he had the smoothest flirting skills of anyone he’d ever seen.  Bar none.  He was awesome. 

 

Half an hour later he was going out of his mind.  “But seriously, do you want to enjoy the romantic atmosphere?” Stiles asked, putting down his book with an exasperated sigh.  Derek was stretched out in front of the fireplace again, looking so amazing and open that Stiles just wanted to curl up next to him.

 

Derek stared at him for a second.  “I have trouble telling when you’re serious,” he said finally.

 

“I’m usually a little bit serious,” Stiles informed him with a somber expression.  “And right now I’d like to cuddle by the fire, only it sounds too weird to say that out loud.”

 

“Cuddle or _cuddle_?”

 

“Well, I just mean cuddle, but if you want to initiate something I could _cuddle_ too.”  Stiles gave Derek a meaningful and flirty expression.

 

Lie.

 

He probably gave Derek crazy eyes if the expression on Derek’s face was anything to go by.

 

Derek was looking at him like he was the strangest person he’d ever met.  But then, Derek had known the kid who tasted mud because he’d seen some show where the character could tell what the dirt was made out of, and Stiles thought he should be able to do it too.  Compared to that, adult Stiles was only a little bit strange.  “Yeah, ok.”

 

Wow, really?  Score.   Stiles slid off the couch and positioned his body on the floor next to Derek’s, rolling over so that he was pressed against Derek’s side.  For a moment it was really warm, the fire heating his arm where it was curved around Derek’s chest.  Then he felt the wood floor digging into his pressure points.  “This is really uncomfortable.”

 

“I hadn’t noticed,” Derek answered smugly, because of course he was directly on top of the fur rug.  It was probably cushioning his toned boney ass from getting pressure sores, but Stiles didn’t have the same luxury.

 

Stiles rolled over again so that he was directly on top of Derek.  “Are you uncomfortable now?” he asked, face pressed into Derek’s neck.

 

“Yeah, a little,” Derek answered, breath coming out with a puff at the end as his chest quaked and Stiles realized that Derek was laughing slightly.

 

“Mmm,” Stiles answered, pushing himself up enough that he could look Derek in the eye.  “How about now?” he asked, leaning forward and bracing himself so that his mouth was a fraction of an inch away from Derek’s.  He could feel the warmth of Derek’s breath against his cheek, and he wanted more than anything to find out what Derek’s mouth felt like beneath his.  He wanted to learn the contours of his full bottom lip, and find out how it felt against his own.  He wanted to find out what it was like to drag his mouth over stubble accidentally, the harsh zing of it.

 

“Less and less,” Derek murmured, his hands sliding up to hold Stiles’ sides.

 

“Good,” Stiles said, leaning forward and kissing him.

 

Derek tasted slightly like chocolate cookies he must have been sneaking, and Stiles enjoyed the knowledge that Derek wasn’t nearly as straight laced as he seemed.  Stiles couldn’t really understand a person who wasn’t indulgent every now and then, because he had trouble holding himself back when he really wanted something, like right now.  He allowed his mouth to briefly touch Derek’s before pulling back until there was just the slightest connection, every nerve tingling and reaching for contact as Stiles softly trailed his lips over Derek’s until Derek had enough and curved his large hands over the small of Stiles’ back, pulling him down closer.

 

Stiles made an amused sound in the back of his throat, giving into Derek’s demands and kissing him.  Derek gave back just as much as he received, running his tongue along Stiles’ bottom lip and tracing his fingers beneath the waistband of Stiles’ pants until Stiles gasped against his mouth.

 

“Do you think it’s too soon for sex?” he asked, arching into Derek’s body as Derek’s hands grew bolder, one of his hands entirely down the back of Stiles’ pajamas.  His fingers were slightly chilly against Stiles’ ass, but they quickly warmed.

 

“No,” Derek answered, pulling Stiles against him as part of his answer, proving how hard he was already.  That hadn’t been the question Stiles had been asking, but it felt like a good enough answer to him in the moment, and he did the motion again completely independent of Derek.  The friction felt amazing.

 

Derek’s skin was warmed by the fire, the light flickering over the hollows and angles of his face, casting him in a fiery glow that emphasized the strength of his cheekbones and the curve of his lips.  The shadows jumped and flickered, making his skin look like it was alive with a kind of magic that would allow Derek to transform into anything.  He was beautiful. Stiles continued grinding himself against Derek, feeling a shiver of delight each time their cocks brushed through the fabric of their pajama bottoms, and he leaned forward to kiss Derek as they both moved against each other.

 

Stiles groaned against Derek’s mouth, delighted as Derek planted his feet on the floor and spread his legs so Stiles fell through them.  He laughed slightly as Derek tried to push up against him again and his bare foot slipped across the hardwood floor, putting them both off balance for a second.

 

Stiles ducked his face next to Derek’s, focusing on the sound of Derek’s breath in his ear and the sensation of their bodies touching, moving a lot like they had on the dance floor, but more intimate.  Stiles’ pants started to slide off from the motion, and he took a moment to reach between them and encourage Derek’s to do the same, delighted when Derek pushed his hips up and Stiles was able to push his pajamas down between the flashes of pleasure pulsating like lights behind his eyes.

 

There wasn’t anything to ease the friction, nothing but sweat and tiny beads of precome, and it wasn’t enough, not nearly, for all the ways Stiles wanted to move uninhibited.  It felt good, amazing, just to be sliding his dick against Derek’s, and he pushed up with his hands so he could see Derek’s face to find out if it was the same for him.  Derek’s eyes were closed, mouth open, and Stiles couldn’t help but give him an open kiss as Derek’s hand slid between their stomachs, tentatively feeling out the best way to grip both of them in his fist.

 

“God, Stiles,” Derek groaned as Stiles wrapped his hand around Derek’s, resting more of his weight against Derek’s chest for balance.

 

“Come before I fall on you,” Stiles managed to choke out, air catching in his throat as his eyes felt like they were rolling into the back of his skull from the way Derek swiped his thumb over the head of Stiles’ erection in retaliation. 

 

“Maybe…” Derek panted, attempting to talk too much for him.  “Maybe I’m not…”  Then his back arched off the floor, almost bucking Stiles off entirely as he came in the space between them and over both of their hands.  Stiles sat up with the need to get off, straddling one of Derek’s thighs.  The air felt cool against his sweat-soaked skin, and he kept Derek’s hand in motion beneath his, enjoying the sensation of controlling someone else’s touch.  He could feel his hand moving, he could feel the sensation of skin against his cock, but he couldn’t connect the sensation of the two, and just the knowledge that it was Derek’s hand instead of his, Derek’s hand on him, was doing so much more for him than his own touch would have.

 

Derek hummed at him, tightening his grasp and taking back his movements.  “I was hoping this would happen,” he told Stiles in a thick, sex-drenched voice.  “The moment I saw you were back.”

 

“Derek,” Stiles groaned as Derek used his free hand to trace a line down Stiles’ thigh muscle.  He was so close, almost on top of his orgasm, but he didn’t want to end the way Derek was looking at him now, like he was everything Derek wanted… like Stiles was Derek’s Christmas present and miracle all in one package.  “Oh god,” Stiles breathed as he came, looking at Derek’s open face.

 

He could feel himself sliding off his perch, but didn’t care, body buzzing from how good Derek had made him feel.  Derek had him, and he could feel Derek’s solid chest beneath his.

 

“Jesus, that was good,” Stiles muttered.

 

Derek started laughing, snickering with his mouth pressed against Stiles’ shoulder.  “I can’t tell if that’s appropriate or inappropriate humor given the date.”

 

Oh.

 

Right.

 

Stiles had kind of forgotten what day it was.

 

Merry Christmas to both of them.  “I’m glad I got stuck here with you,” he said, snuggling into Derek and running his hand down the sweaty length of Derek’s back.

 

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow, he thought, the world going fuzzy as he fell into a nap.

 

~

 

Overnight they eventually made it to Derek’s room, the last of their clothing coming off.  They didn’t do much more than actual cuddling, but Stiles woke up warm and disappointed to see that sometime overnight the snow had stopped.

 

“I’m going to make breakfast,” he said to Derek in a low tone, pressing his lips briefly against his before crawling out of bed.  Part of him wanted to stay in the warmth and bask in Derek, but his stomach was rumbling and complaining the way it usually did the morning after, and it cheered him a bit to think that this was _a morning after_.

 

When Derek emerged from the bedroom a while later, probably lured by the scent of coffee and bacon, because that idea of Derek being straight laced and dedicated to a workout diet was just wrong (or at Christmas every day is a cheat day), Derek returned the kiss.  “Merry Christmas,” he said, stealing some bacon.

 

“Merry Christmas,” Stiles echoed, watching as Derek served himself up his own food.  He was looking forward to another day lounging around the living room, maybe making out on the couch for a while.

 

Lie.  He wanted to spend it back in bed having all kinds of sex.

 

“I’m going to get dressed and brave the weather,” Derek said in a completely serious tone over the breakfast table, like he actually considered the few flurries still coming down and the three feet of fresh snow on the ground to be something that needed to be braved.  Which, uh, yes it was.  Derek was crazy for not waiting to be plowed out.

 

There was at least three feet.  Maybe two.  More than one, probably.

 

“You never actually needed to stay, did you?” Stiles questioned, remembering how easily Derek found his way back when it was first snowing.  There were pictures in his portfolio that looked far more daunting than walking through the grounds of a resort, where there were paths through the trees and lights strung up so people could always see their way.  He followed Derek towards the front door, saying goodbye to his plan of sex.

 

“No,” Derek answered, reaching into the closet and bringing out his snowpants.  “Do you want to come with me?”

 

Wow, not really.  Stiles wasn’t much for winter sports.  He especially wasn’t much for a winter sport that made him slog through the snow with weird tennis rackets on his feet.

 

“I don’t know, I thought maybe we’d stay in and talk.”

 

“We could talk on the way.”

 

As if Stiles was talking about actual talking.  That was adorable.

 

Stiles wrinkled his nose at him.  “I don’t know how in shape you think I am, but I can assure you that I’ll be so out of breath that there won’t be any talking.  I’m a swimming and running kind of guy, not a strap weights to my feet to feel the burn kind of guy.”

 

Derek looked amused.  “You’ll be fine,” he said.  “They’re not as heavy as those ones your dad keeps in the basement.  He tried to loan them to me a few weeks ago and I refused for my health. You’d probably have a point if we were talking about snowshoes from 1850.  Not even you could be that out of shape.”

 

“Fuck you,” Stiles laughed.  “Oh my god, that’s probably how old those things are.  He really tried to give them to you?”

 

“I had to drive up to Portland to do a quick photoshoot for their winter brochure.  Most of my gear is still stored in San Francisco.”  Derek explained all this while putting on his winter jacket.  The moment it was zipped up, Stiles was actually kind of surprised to find how slight Derek still was.  He gave an illusion of being larger than life with the way he held himself, the cut of his clothing showing off his shoulders and chest, but in the snow jacket he looked like a normal guy, someone Stiles might have automatically recognized as being Derek Hale from the very first.

 

The bulk was kind of illusionary.  It was awesome.  They could look like dorks together in their winter jackets.

 

“I might just take a nap. I’m kind of tired from last night,” Stiles decided.  “And I don’t own snowpants.”

 

“There’s a lunch buffet in about two hours,” Derek pointed out, giving Stiles a heated look from beneath his hat at the mentions of their night together.  “We can both spend Christmas Day with our families.”

 

Stiles still looked hesitant.

 

“Turkey supper,” Derek pointed out as a lure.  “We can sneak up to Cora and Laura’s suite and _talk_ on their couch.”

 

So the asshole did know what talking was a euphemism for, Stiles realized, taking in the way Derek was smirking at him.

 

“I can just double up on socks and wear pajamas underneath my jeans,” Stiles decided.

 

“I have an extra pair of snowpants,” Derek said, rolling his eyes.  “Hurry up, I’m already dressed.”

 

Stiles made a face back at him, a face that looked kind of like someone sticking out their tongue, but Stiles was way too mature for that.

 

~

 

It was surprisingly warm outside, and Stiles wasn’t dumb enough not to admit that the reason he wasn’t freezing his balls off was because Derek had forced him into wearing about ten pounds of winter gear.  Even so, it was the kind of warmth that happened after a storm, where the air was calm and everything had an added layer of insulation against the frigid temperatures.  A few flakes were still drifting down in a calm, lazy pattern, landing on his nose and getting caught in his eyelashes. 

 

That didn’t mean that Stiles didn’t feel like he’d been lied to.  Walking through the snow on snowshoes was no easy feat.  But if Derek could do it without even being winded, then Stiles could surely at least make it to the resort without collapsing and dramatically telling Derek to go on without him.

 

Derek had this look of contentment on his face, staring up into the trees and admiring how the snow was clinging to the branches.  Stiles felt…  well, he felt like this was a moment to keep forever, and Derek might be the professional photographer between them, the perfect person to capture the moment if only the subject wasn’t himself, but Stiles had Instagram on his phone and he (mostly kinda) knew how to use it!

 

He had to take off his glove in order to snap the picture, but it was worth it for the way Derek looked at him, blinking in confusion, a moment later.  It wasn’t that great of a shot, but it was Stiles’.  “You looked so content,” Stiles said, showing Derek the screen. 

 

Derek raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment on how the shot was slightly blurry, the snow coming out more like distorted fuzz than actual snow.  Stiles appreciated that, because he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to keep from commenting if Derek did.  Stiles might not be a photographer, but let’s see Derek deal with tracking down human traffickers on a daily basis!

 

Stiles was kind of an asshole with very few social filters, but then so was Derek.  Maybe that’s why this whole dating thing they were going to try felt right.  Or maybe it was just that high school hadn’t been the right time for them.  It was less a missed opportunity and more of a situation where it wouldn’t have worked back then.

 

“This will work, right?” Stiles asked, reaching out for Derek’s hand.  Both of them were wearing heavy gloves, so instead of actually managing to get his fingers around Derek’s it was more like he pinched his hand between his, unable to really feel anything through the layers of leather and down filling.

 

Derek looked up at the sky.  He didn’t mention that he travelled a lot for his job, or that he was probably a little addicted to danger.  He didn’t mention that Stiles was the opposite – someone who liked to stay in one place unless he was going somewhere for vacation, somewhere safe he helped keep safe from criminals, and someone who didn’t particularly enjoy leaping off mountains with only a thin parachute stopping him from dying.  “Why wouldn’t it?” he asked instead.

 

“No idea,” Derek shrugged, backing Stiles up against a tree.  It was difficult work, considering the snow and the fact they couldn’t walk too close to each other with the snowshoes, but then Derek was kissing him, his mouth warming Stiles’ lips.  “Good talk,” Derek muttered, gloved hands cupping Stiles’ face.

 

Stiles laughed against Derek’s lips.

 

Asshole.

 

~

 

“I had sex with your brother,” Stiles whispered, standing in line next to Laura at the salad bar.

 

“Good,” she said, but her voice told him that maybe, just the knowledge that it had actually happened had finally managed to reach Laura’s extreme TMI threshold.

 

“Oh, it was,” Stiles said, grinning and winking at Derek from across the room.  “He looks great naked too, I feel like I need to share this with someone.”

 

“Oh, go ahead,” Laura answered breezily.  “Oh look, Cora’s calling me over.  Wait on that thought, I want to hear all about it.”

 

Lie.

 

Laura did not.  Stiles was on to her.  He didn’t have time to gloat because his father was calling him over, his armed wrapped around Talia.  Whatever his dad had to say wasn’t news to Stiles because Laura had sent him pictures, but he did want to kind of hear it in person right from the source.

 

“Talia and I are getting married,” John told him, hugging Derek’s mom to his side.  Stiles hadn’t seen his father that happy in a very long time.  He hadn’t had a lot of opportunity to watch their body language, and a lot of that was his fault, but they both leaned into each other, smiling with their entire faces even when their lips weren’t curved up visibly.

 

“You look happy,” Stiles said, reaching out to hug them both.  “Congratulations.”

 

“Thanks son,” John answered, and if anything he looked relieved, like he expected Stiles to say something terrible.  “I was hoping you’d be happy for us.”

 

Well, if he expected it.  “Oh, I am, cheers” Stiles said, but since he was a little shit, he waited for both of them to take a drink of their champagne.  “But it’s awkward considering I’m having sex with her son.”

 

His dad choked on his champagne, but Talia just grinned at both of them, sharp and pointed.  “Good,” she said.  “I don’t know how many more instances I could have shoved the two of you together.  Do you think it was chance your rooms were across from each other?”  She shook her head and laughed.  “It seems like you and Stiles have things to talk about,” she said, kissing John on the cheek before wandering off.

 

“Are you sure you’re making the right decision?” Stiles asked once she was out of ear shot.  “She’s frighteningly evil.  And I don’t mean that in an insulting way.”

 

“Are you sure you’re making the right decision?  This isn’t residual curiosity from the sexual awakening Derek caused you as a teenager?”

 

“Oh my god,” Stiles said, turning around completely and walking away from his dad.  Yeah, his dad and Talia would be perfect for each other.  He was sure his dad was now heading for his future bride so the two could high five over how uncomfortable they both made him.  “Look over my shoulder,” he said once he found Derek.  “Are they gloating together?”

 

Derek just shrugged.  “They look happy.”

 

“At my mortification, yeah,” Stiles muttered, stealing one of the chocolates Derek had in his hand.  Derek was now showing Stiles his weakness, so Stiles took that as progress.

 

“Why are my sisters heading this way?” Derek asked, looking alarmed.

 

“I suggest we hide,” Stiles answered, grabbing Derek’s face in his hands and kissing him.

 

“I thought we were hiding,” Derek muttered against his mouth, the words barely audible.

 

“In plain sight,” Stiles answered.  “Who wants to approach the couple making out in the corner?”

 

“Laura,” Derek predicted.

 

~

 

A Happy Holiday season gave way to the reality of a long distance relationship.  They tried in January, going back and forth a few times.  It got a bit more difficult in February.

 

They almost didn’t survive March.

 

In April Stiles flew to see Derek in San Francisco for the last time.  Their long distance relationship was getting too difficult to maintain easily, and Derek was spending just as much money to see Stiles between contracts as he was earning it.  Sustaining that kind of transient lifestyle, going back and forth between his work, his studio, and Stiles’ apartment, took its toll.  Exhaustion wasn’t a good thing when taking pictures of extreme mountain bikers descending a muddy mountain after a rainfall.

 

Derek had been in the hospital for a week.

 

Stiles still wasn’t convinced that Derek could make the drive back to San Diego safely, but Derek refused to allow anyone else to drive either of his cars. So there Stiles was, getting off a plane only to drive 8 hours back home in the SUV so Derek could bring both his earthly possessions and his beautiful toy of a car.

 

“It’s a good job you’re so amazing,” Stiles said, kissing Derek quickly.  “Because I’m not certain how we’re going to live together on a constant basis.”

 

“It’ll be fine,” Derek said, taking the keys for the Camaro and twirling them around his finger.  “If not, I can do some work on my portfolio.”

 

“You’re probably going to take up city parkour,” Stiles muttered, wondering what kind of danger Derek could get into in San Diego.  Probably vigilantism.  Derek would probably keep accidentally butting into Stiles’ cases.  It would be terrible.

 

Lie.

 

It wasn’t terrible.

 

It was perfect.           

 

~

 

Stiles hadn’t seen Derek for about four weeks now.  He’d been away doing photography for an adventure tour, one of his independent contracts away from the advertising company he usually worked for.  He looked more tanned than he had the last time Stiles had traced his body with his fingertips and worshipped Derek with his tongue.  Derek also looked more tense, and was holding himself with his weight on one leg.  Stiles could read from the cut of Derek’s mouth that something was wrong, and it should worry him that he knew so much about this man, but instead it made him pleased that there was someone he knew well enough to be able to read the nuances across the room.

 

Derek was speaking to someone Stiles vaguely recognized from Beacon Hills from a lifetime ago. 

 

“We’re brothers now,” Stiles said when he officially reached Derek, feeling immensely playful.  He could tell from the way Derek’s eyes widened slightly that there was a mischievous expression on his face, because Derek tended to worry whenever Stiles had plans and ideas. 

 

“Stiles…” Derek started, probably to deny their bro-hood.

 

Stiles just continued moving forward, swaying his upper body towards Derek’s until he was able to press their mouths together.  It had been almost a month since they’d last done this, and having a reunion kiss in front of strangers probably wasn’t a good idea.  Having one in front of strangers at their parents’ wedding?  Yeah, Stiles was awesome because that was a terrible idea.  He’d probably end up climbing Derek like a tree.

 

“Mmm, I missed you,” Stiles said, tracing his fingers down Derek’s jaw as he pulled away slowly.  Derek was looking at him with a bit of a dumbfounded expression on his face, the same one he always gave Stiles after a really thorough kiss, like there was a piece of him who would always be shocked that Stiles wanted to kiss him.

 

Derek smiled at him, a soft and underrated curl of his lips that would never be a full grin but that made Stiles feel like he had broken through all of Derek’s walls and was now basking in the heat of his affections.

 

He looked over to find that the people Derek had been talking to were across the room putting on their coats.

 

“You two are a Folgers commercial,” Laura said off-hand, laughing as she walked away from them and grabbed a flute of champagne on her way across the room.

 

“Unfortunately, I understand that reference,” Derek muttered. 

**Author's Note:**

> [Follow me on Tumblr,](http://relenafanel.tumblr.com/) where I will promise you something will be posted before a certain date and then only manage to get it out a few weeks later.
> 
> But at least you'll be aware of it.
> 
> Oh, and also drabbles.


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